What is the difference between saying I don’t need God and I don’t need the church? There is no difference. God does His work in us through the church. We love Jesus by loving His church. We serve Jesus by serving the church. Those who have a low view of the church because all they can see are sinful people will struggle in their spiritual growth.

Praying with our church family is an essential part of being part of the “Body of Christ.” Praying with our church family is a supernatural event where Jesus chooses to manifest His presence to us. The power we have in prayer is exponentially greater in corporate prayer. Christians who neglect praying with their church family are cutting off God’s primary source of power for living the Christian life. Christians who think they can function fine as a Christian independent of their church family are manifesting a huge amount of pride.

Colossians 1:18 Christ is also head of the body, the church;

Romans 12:5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

1 Corinthians 12:12 For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.

Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.

I have been preaching about pride and humility at our Wednesday evening service, and I will once again this coming Wednesday. This past week I talked about walking humbly with our God and how we do that. This Wednesday I will talk about a very common pride issue that very few even recognize that they have a problem with. It is being a non-learner because we think we already know everything. It is one of those things that if asked if we know everything we would quickly admit that we do not, but that doesn’t change the fact that most rarely ask for advice or counsel about anything, and if someone attempts to teach or correct us there is a resistance, and a “I know it already attitude.”

Being a life-long learner is a great goal. We can do that by regularly reading good books, listening to podcasts, and taking classes on various subjects and topics. Asking for advice from another person is a great way to learn and grow because God loves humility so much that He will prompt the person we asked advice or counsel from with just the right information. God can do that, and He does do that for the humble man or woman who is quick to learn from other people around them.

To overcome the built-in resistance that we all have to being taught by a peer make a goal to at least once a week to ask advice from someone. In the evening while you are sitting in your chair watching tv write down the person, the question and the place and time, and then do it. Great growth will come of it

During our “Five Days of Prayer” for our missions ministry at Jefferson Baptist Church we are hearing reports several times each day via Zoom and in person of what is happening around the world through the ministries of various missionaries that we are supporting. Their reports sharing how God is working have been amazing and incredibly inspiring. I have thought often this week, “Wow,” it is funny how so much really cool stuff is happening and I had no clue. I have been reminded over and over again this week of the power of prayer, and what amazing things God will do if we pray. So many people choose not to participate much or at all in our prayer times because of being busy, many are simply indifferent and apathetic to the spiritual needs of the world, there are those who are intimidated by corporate prayer and are unwilling to face and overcome those fears, there are a large number who simply don’t believe it makes any difference, their faith is very small, and they don’t know how to grow it, and then there are those whose pride says, “I don’t need to pray in unity with the church, I can pray on my own.”

I have been tremendously blessed so far by the stories and reports, and recognize that I am a part of those stories because I am faithfully, and sacrificially praying in agreement with my church family for these people and ministries, and God is obviously working and blessing.

One of my favorite reading experiences over the years is biographies. I have probably read over 50 biographies of different people and am in the process of reading a couple of new ones right now. I think the all-time favorite that I have read four other times is “George Mueller of Bristol.” He was an amazing man of faith and prayer that accomplished an amazing amount during his life through prayer.

I was thinking about my life the other day, and wondering how a biography of my life would read, whether it would be boring, instructional, motivational, or totally uninteresting. As I think about it I know it wouldn’t be much about my accomplishments. My life can be described as being on a ride. I haven’t really done anything, I have just been on this ride where lots of things have happened around me, to me, for me, and in spite of me. I remember as a kid going on a trip on a train, sitting next to the window watching things go by wondering what was coming next. That is how it has been my whole life, just waiting for what is next.

Romans 8:28 is certainly a Bible verse that describes my life. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

I tell a lot of stories about how Patty and I met and got married. The bottom line in all of those stories is that I was just at the right place at the right time and it all worked out.

My journey as a pastor is pretty much the same, I have been in the right place at the right time most of my life, and things just sort of happened, none of which I can take much credit for.

We are praying right now for ten hours each day at JBC for our Missions ministry, and I have been remembering various experiences of traveling around the world and the opportunities that have dropped into my lap, into the lap of our church, that have turned into great and very rewarding ministries. My question to myself most of the time is, “Now, how did that happen?”

So, here I sit, looking out the window, wondering what is next, I bet it is going to be fun.

Many people choose to get vaccinated against COVID-19 because health authorities insist they reduce a person’s risk of experiencing a more severe case of the virus. However, data from Israel indicates that this is not the case.
In fact, most of the severe cases of the virus at one of the country’s biggest hospital complexes are being found in people who have received at least three doses of the vaccine. This is according to the hospital’s coronavirus ward director.
Israel is an interesting place to study this type of data because it has one of the greatest rates of vaccination in the world at around 90%. Moreover, many of the country’s high-risk patients have even received a fourth shot.
Professor Yaakov Jerris of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center – Ichilov Hospital, the country’s second-biggest hospital, said that between 70 and 80 percent of the serious cases they are currently seeing are among vaccinated individuals.
He added: “So, the vaccine has no significance regarding severe illness.”
Moreover, despite Israel’s high vaccination rate, there were more cases of COVID-19 identified in the country in January of this year than in all of 2021, according to the Times of Israel.
Last month, the preliminary results of a major study in Israel found that getting a fourth booster of the Pfizer vaccine is only partially effective when it comes to protecting against the omicron variant. This is consistent with a report from the German government, which revealed that more than 95 percent of omicron cases in that country were among vaccinated individuals.
However, Israeli scientists have revealed one very helpful piece of information. They say they have now obtained the most convincing evidence yet that vitamin D supplements can help patients with COVID-19 to reduce their risk of serious illness or death.
Using research that was carried out during the country’s first two waves of the virus, which was before the vaccines were available, the peer-reviewed study by researchers from the Galilee Medical Center and Bar-Ilan University said the impact of vitamin D was so strong that they could actually predict just how well infected patients would fare simply by looking at their ages and vitamin D levels. The study was published in the journal PLOS One.
One of the researchers, Dr. Amiel Dror, said: “We found it remarkable, and striking, to see the difference in the chances of becoming a severe patient when you are lacking in vitamin D compared to when you’re not.”
According to Dr. Dror, vitamin D’s ability to strengthen the immune system allows it to address viral pathogens attacking the respiratory system in an effect that is just as relevant for omicron as it was for previous variants.
Preliminary findings that were published by the researchers in June showed that 26 percent of COVID-19 patients who were deficient in vitamin D shortly before hospitalization ended up dying, compared to just three percent of those who had normal vitamin D levels. Moreover, hospitalized COVID-19 patients who had a vitamin D deficiency were 14 times more likely than other individuals to end up in critical or severe condition.
The researchers also addressed the common question among scientists of whether any recent health conditions in patients could have skewed the results. To determine whether vitamin D deficiency was a symptom or a contributing factor, they looked at the patients’ vitamin D levels during the two years prior to being infected by the virus.
Dror said: “We checked a range of timeframes, and found that wherever you look over the two years before infection, the correlation between vitamin D and disease severity is extremely strong.”

Tomorrow morning I will get up at 4:30 am and go into the church to pray for five hours. Then I will go back home and sleep for 2 hours and then I will get up and work on my Wednesday night service sermon. Then at 5:00 pm I will head back into the church and pray until 9:00 pm. During the nine hours that I am sitting in the prayer room I will listen to each person as they pray, agreeing in my head with them and praying along with them. I will also listen to my own thoughts that are randomly popping into my head about a variety of different things. If I have a thought and then I hear someone pray something close to what I just thought, I will assume that the thought was from the Lord and will then pray it out loud. I then listen attentively to the prayers that follow. Often when I do that there will be a long line of different people who will pray about that same thing. When the Holy Spirit who is in the room prompts someone to pray something it will usually be a number of people who are prompted to pray the same thing. In reality it is probably everyone in the room but many are mentally asleep, not listening to their own thoughts and they miss out. Some are so determined not to pray out loud that they get no promptings from God on what to pray. This scenario that I just described doesn’t happen a lot, but when it does it is very exhilarating for me spiritually. It affirms for me that God is in the room in a special way prompting and leading our prayer times.

For five days I will have a similar schedule of praying and then on Sunday I get to watch the Super Bowl cheering on my favorite team, eating like a pig, having great fellowship with a bunch of other guys. Let me know if you want to watch it with us. Can you imagine a better week than that!

Last week I coughed a lot, had a non-stop headache, my muscles ached, and my chest hurt as I battled the COVID virus. Today I feel physically fine and healthy, but flat, depressed, and wrung out. When I feel this way, I also feel unmotivated to do much of anything. When this happens in me occasionally I turn it into a contest, a battle between my feelings and my will. I like to win and I don’t like the idea of losing to my wimpy, selfish flesh., although I do pretty often.

There are certain activities that I have discovered over the years that are very therapeutic for me at times like this. The problem is that I am not very motivated to do them when I am in this state of mind, so I have to just do them. One of them is to read, meditate on, memorize, and pray a large volume of the Psalms. There are 150 chapters in Psalms, and today I am going to read 100 chapters reflectively, prayerfully, along with some writing on observed insights. The chapters in Psalms are generally short, except for chapter 119, so the exercise usually takes about an hour, but it is very effective in jazzing up my passion and fire.

It seems like a lot, but it isn’t, and It seems to go rather quickly for me. Try it yourself and see what happens, and if the volume I suggested looks too much, make a 15-minute goal, or 30 minute

It is funny how certain fundamental principles keep popping up over and over again. One of those principles is, “You don’t have to act the way you feel.” In fact, if you do, you are going to mess up your life, and the lives of those you love.

During these days of pandemics, woke culture, mask mandates, vaccine mandates, crazy inflation it is very easy to get emotional about current events in our life, and about our own experiences and circumstances.

Emotions are normal and expected, both the highs and the lows, the angry and the sad, and the positive and the negative. The problem comes when we make choices, act, and treat people according to how we feel. Children do that and we are not surprised when they do, they are children, but many adults are behaving like children in our unpredictable culture.

The key to acting right when we don’t feel like it is to follow principles and guidelines, here are half a dozen simple, but good ones.

1. Always obey Ephesians 4:29 – Let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only words that edify, honor, and give grace to those who hear.

2. If we don’t forgive others, God won’t forgive us.

3. God is in charge, He knows what He is doing, trust Him.

4. Always obey Philippians 4:4, “rejoice always.”

5. Always obey Philippians 2:14, “grumble about nothing.”

6. Guard yourself against speaking slander and gossip, it is easy to do, and it feels so good, but God hates it and consequences will follow.

Isolation may keep COVID from spreading, but this is what a person gets to looking like when they do.

Why comb my hair or take a shower or change my clothes!

I plan on joining the world on Saturday and I plan on cleaning up good before I do😀

We grow in character much faster together with other people. We resist the devil and his temptations much better together. Our praying has so much more power together. Here is a description of hell in the Bible.

Psalms 88:4-8
I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit;
I have become like a man without strength,
Forsaken among the dead,
Like the slain who lie in the grave,
Whom You remember no more,
And they are cut off from Your hand.
You have put me in the lowest pit,
In dark places, in the depths.
Your wrath has rested upon me,
And You have afflicted me with all Your waves.
You have removed my acquaintances far from me;
You have made me an object of loathing to them;
I am shut up and cannot go out.

sounds like COVID isolation to me.

This next week is JBC’s “Five Days of Prayer.” I plan on praying 40 hours during the five days with many of you. I expect that I will grow a lot and that God will work powerfully in the world around me because of it.

2 Corinthians 5:2-3 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened,

Paul uses the words house and tent to describe our physical body, and he said while we live in these physical bodies we groan. The older we get the more we understand what that means. More aches and pains, and so we groan, longing for our new, glorified body that won’t get old, get tired, get sick, or get ugly. Occasionally something comes along that ups the “groan factor,” like COVID and we all tend to wonder why.

Philippians 2:27 For indeed he was sick to the point of death,

Paul’s friend was sick to the point of death, many people die from sickness. Everybody is going to die from something.

Very few things in life do I dislike as much as being sick, and I groan. But this bout of sickness is close to being finished, just a little headache this morning, all the other consequences of COVID are over, and I anticipate being as good as new in a couple of days. But it is just a matter of time until the next bout of something comes around, and one of them is going to be the last one.

The cool thing for me as my life unfolds event after event is that I have no fear of death. I am looking forward to being done with this life and moving into the next phase of God’s plan for me. There is the nervousness of a new experience, not knowing exactly how it is all going to unfold, but I have no fear of dying. I am curious and wonder what form my death will take. My Dad died of cancer and almost every relative has as well so the probability of cancer is high. I might get hit by a car as I ride my bicycle across the USA this summer.

The main thing for me is that I finish this race called life at a sprint, living life with a purpose.